


The End of the Beginning

by MachaSWicket



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, post-episode 3x23 My Name Is Oliver Queen, so you know spoilers abound, the night before porsches and sunsets, they still have some stuff to work out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 19:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3989836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SUMMARY:  Tomorrow – and her stomach jumps a little every time she lets herself think about it – tomorrow, she and Oliver are leaving on some grand tour of the U.S. (And each other.) But first:  sleep.  Lots and lots of sleep. At least that’s the plan. To say she wasn’t expecting a knock at her door is putting it mildly. Because Oliver left her outside Palmer Tech with a sweet, lingering kiss, and he’d looked at least as tired as she felt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End of the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [closer2fine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/closer2fine/gifts).



> Happy birthday, youguysimserious! :) I’m sorry I didn’t write you smut, but I did finally write you something you asked me for? So... sorry? :) 
> 
> And thanks for the title. :)

 

Felicity showers for at  _least_ forty minutes after finally,  _finally_  peeling off what she’s come to think of as her Nanda Parbat jeans, plus the rest of her been-wearing-it-way-too-long outfit. Turns out saving the city from a megalomaniacal mass murderer in between long international flights, plus passing some time chained to the floor in an actual, literal dungeon – it does a number on your hair.

And your mental health – but that, Felicity decides, is a problem for another day. Because her current plan is to dry her hair just enough so it’s not dripping, tug on something loose and comfortable, and collapse into bed for a minimum of ten hours.

Tomorrow – and her stomach jumps a little every time she lets herself think about it – tomorrow, she and Oliver are leaving on some grand tour of the U.S. (And each other.) But first:  sleep. 

Lots and lots of sleep. At least that’s the plan.

To say she wasn’t expecting a knock at her door is putting it mildly. Because Oliver left her outside Palmer Tech with a sweet, lingering kiss, and he’d looked at  _least_  as tired as she felt. Nevertheless, she’s barely pulled her oldest, softest (and, coincidentally, most see through) t-shirt on when she hears the knock.

She knows it’s him, but checks the peephole anyway. 

Her stomach does a really weird loopy, butterflies-in-a-frenzy thing when she sees him standing in her hallway. She wrenches open the door and he’s just… _there_ , in a leather jacket and jeans, looking so very Oliver that she can’t stop the flood of nerves. Because she’s been able to keep up some of her guard with him parading around as al Sah-him, remember what he’d  _done_  to keep up appearances. But the man standing before her now is  _her_  Oliver, and he isn’t hiding anything. He’s here, just because he wants to be.

He’s finally trying to let himself be happy.

It’s so simple, but such a big step for him that she feels a little unsure of herself – should she acknowledge it, or just pull him inside, or–?

“Hi,” she says, and words are spilling out of her before she can consider whether to say them, “I wasn’t expecting you. I mean, I  _was_ , just not tonight. Not that it’s a  _bad_ surprise, it’s the best kind of surprise, actually, so–” She stops, closes her eyes, takes a breath, and steps back. “You should come in.”

Oliver huffs a laugh and steps into her apartment, then into her personal space. He leans in and kisses her again, softly, but with intent, and Felicity realizes some indeterminate amount of time later that his duffel bag is on the floor, he’s got her pressed against her door, and her hands are under his shirt pressed to the warm skin over his ribs.

“Oh,” she says, sliding her hands along his skin – because she can do that now, and also, it makes him hiss in this really sexy way – and gently presses him back. 

Oliver furrows his brow, but moves immediately. “You okay?” he asks.

The problem is that she is – in a lot of ways, she really,  _really_  is, and for the first time in months. But she also isn’t. And she does  _not_  have the emotional reserves to even attempt to get into this right now. So she regretfully pulls her hands from his skin and touches the sleeves of his jacket instead. “I will be.”

Uncertainty is clear on his face as he stills beneath her touch. “Is it–? Should I not have come?” he asks, flustered. His eyes are clouded with worry. “Felicity, I can go if that’s–”

“No,” she interrupts, giving him a wide, genuine smile – because Oliver is here, in her house, purely because he couldn’t wait twelve hours to start their strange new life together.  _Together_. It still hits her right in the fluttery-est, girliest parts of her when she lets herself think about it. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says. And it’s true. 

The big picture stuff she’s sure about – she and Oliver being together. Taking this trip together as a kind of reset to their relationship. She’s sure and she’s happy and she doesn’t want him to doubt that at all. So she adds, “I want you to stay.” Just to be clear.

“Okay,” Oliver answers, but he is still unsure. “I just… Felicity, I missed you _so_  much.” Regret and love and lust and worry are so clear in his voice. He takes her hands in his, tangles their fingers together. “And I thought I would never see you again, and now that I’m here and you’re here, I just– I couldn’t wait.”

She softens, leaning forward and pulling him into a big, tight hug. And when is ridiculously large arms wrap around her and crush her to his chest, something tight and scared and angry inside of her starts to ease, just a little bit. Because, God, she’d missed him, too. Like an ache so deep down inside nothing could touch it.

And this is enough for tonight, this understanding. The things they need to talk about – they’ll have nothing but time on their road trip. Honestly, a part of her wants to make sure he has nowhere to run during some of the conversations she wants to have with him – conversations about what it means to be brave, and what it means to be a partner, and what it means to be together. 

All of that is too much for tonight. “Come on,” she murmurs into the soft cotton of his shirt. “Come to bed.”

There’s just a moment’s hesitation, and then he releases her. His entire frame sags when he gives a long exhale and says, “I’m so tired.” She can see it in the lines of his body, in the slight lean to favor his bad knee, in the slow blink of his eyes, in the tightness of his shoulders.

Felicity grabs his hand and pulls. He’s been in her place before, but never like this. And never in her bedroom. He comes willingly, not stopping until they’re standing beside her bed. She feels nervous again, but also just so exhausted. 

Turning to face him, she reaches up and pushes his jacket from his shoulders, and he shrugs out of it. Felicity tosses it towards the armchair in the corner, but doesn’t look to see it inevitably fall short and land in a crumpled heap on her floor. She reaches for the waistband of his jeans, unbuttoning and then unzipping, as he stands placidly before her.

“Felicity,” he whispers as she pulls his pants down over his hips.

She urges him towards the bed, waiting until he complies and sits on the mattress. “Undress,” she says, then steps back, circling the bed and crawling in on her side.

He’s got his shoes off by the time she settles against the pillows, and she watches unashamedly as he tugs his t-shirt over his head. She has no intention of starting anything up right now, but she’s always been a fan of his body. Having him half-naked in her bed is something she intends to remember – she appreciates the way the low light makes his skin glow.

And then she sees the brand.

“Oliver!” she gasps, jerking upright.

He’s half-turned to her in an instant, reacting to the sharpness of her tone, but she can’t tear her eyes from the freshly burned flesh of his back. Her eyes flood with tears – angry tears, anguished tears – and she reaches out with trembling hands to touch the unmarred skin around it. “Oliver,” she whispers.

“It’s okay, Felicity,” he says.

But it’s  _not_. God, she wishes Ra’s al Ghul was still alive so she could kill him again for the ways he’d tortured this man. Her throat is tight, and she can barely get the words out. “I’m sorry, Oliver.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he answers immediately. And vehemently.

She blinks back tears, pushing up on her knees and leaning forward to press soft kisses to the burnt flesh. “He hurt you,” she murmurs into his skin, “and you’ve been hurt way, way too much in your life, Oliver. I’m sorry for so much of what you’ve had to endure.”

His breath is unsteady, and she wraps her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his shoulder blade, offering what comfort she can. His hands land on hers, squeezing, pulling her away and he’s turning, pulling, and they’re kissing. The heightened emotions of…  _everything_ … breaks through her logic and her reason, and she loses herself in the kiss, in the moment with Oliver.

She feels the desperation in his body, the lust, and she winds her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. Oliver’s familiar weight is pressed against her chest, pressing her back into the pillows before she calls a halt to things. “Oliver,” she says, kissing along his jaw as his fingers trace hot patterns on her body “Oliver, wait.”

His hands are clenching at her hips, pulling her closer, but he lifts his head and meets her gaze. “Felicity?”

“We can’t,” she says, and she’s breathing hard and she  _wants_  him, but she just – she can’t. 

He’s confused, giving her that adorable puzzled puppy look, and it’s almost enough to break her resolve. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I can’t,” she says slowly. When he starts to move, to pull away, she tightens her hands around his biceps, asking him without words to stay. “You’re married.”

Oliver blinks. And then stares at her. “Not really.”

“Oliver,” she says, “I know it wasn’t what you wanted. I know  _for sure_  it wasn’t what Nyssa wanted, but you did it, and I…” She pauses, uncharacteristically struggling for words. “I don’t feel right about–”

“Okay,” he interrupts, moving his hands to her waist, easing up on the pressure of his body against hers. “It’s okay, Felicity, I understand.”

“I  _want_  to,” she says, the words tumbling out of her now, “I really,  _really_  want to, because you’re here and ready, willing, and able – I mean– you know what I mean. And we’re good at this, so it’s not that I don’t  _want_  to, I just– I know it’s not a real marriage, and Laurel doesn’t think it’s probably legally binding, which – great! – but weddings can be cultural even if they’re not legal, and if that’s true, I just don’t feel right about–”

“Felicity–”

“–you and I starting this new part of our lives until you and Nyssa figure out what to do about,” she shrugs, “ _that_.” During that unfortunate torrent of words, Felicity let her gaze drift down to the sight of her fingers against his shoulder, because she’s a little afraid of the look on his face.

“Felicity?” 

She takes a deep breath, and makes herself look up. He’s grinning down at her.

“I love you,” he says, slow and clear. “I’ll wait for you as long as you need me to, Felicity. Nyssa and I already discussed how to annul this. She’s heading back to Nanda Parbat to renounce me.”

Felicity tries, she really does, but it’s hard not to grin at that. “You’re being renounced?”

He huffs a laugh. “I am.” He leans closer and presses a careful, chaste kiss to her lips “Surprisingly, this is my first renouncing.”

She laughs, and her trepidation eases. “Oliver, are we okay?”

His amusement softens into something sweeter as he watches her. “I don’t think I’ve ever been better, Felicity,” he says. And then he shifts, lying on his side and tugging her close. “Or more tired,” he adds. Then he stills. “Unless you want me to go?”

“No, no,” she says, shifting so she can reach the bedside lamp and switch it off. Then she presses her back up against his chest and tugs his arm around her waist. “Just sleep with me.”

She can feel his laughter, but he doesn’t speak, just presses a kiss to her neck and snuggles a little closer. It’s more than they had in Nanda Parbat, on their one night together, this unlimited, peaceful moment. It occurs to her as she starts to drift off that this sleeping together is maybe more intimate than the sex she didn’t want to have while he’s still technically married.

“Good night, Felicity,” he murmurs near her ear. “I love you.”

She’s pretty sure she mumbles something back, but that might have been a dream.

END


End file.
